Missing deadline in Ike cleanup will cost taxpayers

Galveston works to end Ike cleanupOn March 13, costs shift from the federal level to local taxpayers

SHAMINDER DULAI, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Published
6:30 am CST, Friday, February 19, 2010

Kenneth Adison, 50, cuts up dead wood for removal as part of the city of Galveston's efforts﻿ to clean up remaining Ike debris. Today is the city's deadline to get debris to the curb.﻿

Kenneth Adison, 50, cuts up dead wood for removal as part of the city of Galveston's efforts﻿ to clean up remaining Ike debris. Today is the city's deadline to get debris to the curb.﻿

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Chronicle

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Chronicle

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Kenneth Adison, 50, cuts up dead wood for removal as part of the city of Galveston's efforts﻿ to clean up remaining Ike debris. Today is the city's deadline to get debris to the curb.﻿

Kenneth Adison, 50, cuts up dead wood for removal as part of the city of Galveston's efforts﻿ to clean up remaining Ike debris. Today is the city's deadline to get debris to the curb.﻿

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Chronicle

Missing deadline in Ike cleanup will cost taxpayers

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GALVESTON — More than a year after workers hauled away Mercedes Cortez's magnolia tree killed by Hurricane Ike's salty storm surge, crews were back on her street Thursday to dispose of a cottonwood rotting in a neighbor's backyard.

“It's bittersweet, but we know it had to go,” Cortez said as city contractors used a 120-ton crane to remove the dead timber. “It's kind of like cutting off one of your arms.”

Seventeen months have passed since Ike covered the island with seawater that killed thousands of giant trees that once provided a shady canopy above Galveston's oldest neighborhoods.

March 13 is incentive

And when the 18th month is up on March 13, the cost of hauling away all that wood shifts from the federal government to local taxpayers. That deadline is giving city leaders plenty of incentive to complete the cleanup task quickly. Today, meanwhile, is the deadline for residents to haul storm debris to the curb for free disposal.

“Any funds that don't come from the city, will free up the city to work on other things,” said city spokeswoman Alicia Cahill.

Alex Martin, a contractor hired by the city, directed a small crew in the removal of the towering cottonwood nestled precariously over councilwoman Elizabeth Beeton's home.

“We've tried to figure out every way to remove these trees, but some of them, this is the only way,” Martin said as the crane swooped over the rooftop of a three story Victorian and dropped another branch in the street.

The city cleared trees from public land almost immediately, but dead trees remained standing on private property because homeowners had formally grant permission to the city to remove trees from their land.

“There was a lot of reluctance to remove the trees,” Cahill said. “People were hopeful that they would (come back), and the city had to let them decide.”

Workers have systematically removed about 7,500 dead trees since October 2008. The total amount of debris hauled off the island since the storm measures out to 1.5 million cubic yards.

“It was a shock when we lost the trees, we used to have five that were 100 years old. We lost four,” Beeton said. “It changed our house and it changed our neighborhood.”

Beeton checks Google Earth occasionally to see the change. The once lush street is now barren with neighbors still replanting and not a hint of shade in sight.

Like new construction

It's changed how Matt Mitchell, owner of Managed Land Resources, advises his customers on what to plant in their new sun-drenched yards as some of the plants that grew in the shade could not longer be sustained.

“It's almost like new construction,” Mitchell said. “It's going to be 50 years before we have the tree canopy we had before Ike, it's a great loss, but it's almost spring, so we're hoping for a rebirth, to get back to normalcy.”

Normal is what Cortez had in mind when she returned to her childhood home after retirement, but the hurricane changed the neighborhood and she still feels the impact almost a year and a half removed from it.

From the second story of her century-old home hangs a small blue banner embroidered with “Historic Galveston Rebirth.” She put it up initially at Christmas, nestling it between blinking lights and holiday greetings. But when the decorations came down, she left it up there as a message to all those who pass by.